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Insights to Impact

We are excited to announce our support for 71 local organizations through our Invest in Youth initiative this year. This brings our total annual funding for youth-focused nonprofit programs to $2.8 million—an increase of $250,000 over last year’s grantmaking.

Brooklyn Community Foundation is setting out to prove that Brooklyn is not just New York City’s biggest borough, it also has the largest heart this holiday season with #BrooklynGives on Giving Tuesday, a 24-hour local giving campaign that aims to raise over $1 million for community-based nonprofits across the borough.

As we enter the final months of 2018, we are pleased to announce $170,000 from our Immigrant Rights Fund to support immigrant-serving nonprofits across Brooklyn providing social services, legal aid, and advocacy. These new grants bring our total funding to date to $837,300 since the Fund was launch in the weeks following the 2016 presidential election.

On Tuesday, October 23rd, we proudly launched the #MakeBrooklynCount campaign and the Brooklyn Complete Count Committee for Census 2020 in partnership with the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President.

On October 20th, nearly 200 brawny Brooklynites will compete for the top spot in CrossFit South Brooklyn’s annual Fight Gone Bad! This will be the Gowanus-based gym’s 6th year in a row raising funds to support high-impact community initiatives in Brooklyn through our Community Fund.

#BrooklynGives aims to give Brooklyn nonprofits an extra boost by providing them with an innovative and exciting way to both fundraise and build awareness for their work. This year, our goal is to raise more than $1 million for 100+ Brooklyn nonprofits on Tuesday, November 27th from 12:00am to 11:59pm.

Thanks to the generosity of donors, we have deployed $50,000 from our Immigrant Rights Fund to address the ongoing national emergency of immigrant families separated and detained at the U.S.-Mexico border.

As this summer’s Program intern, I have had the opportunity to read applications from organizations seeking funding through our grant programs, as well as reports from grantees on their progress over the past year. Getting to know these organizations has deepened my understanding of the needs of Brooklyn community members. One of my favorite projects has been mapping the neighborhoods and communities our Immigrant Rights Fund (IRF) grantees serve.

Tucked away at 1233 Pacific St. in Crown Heights is the Westbrook Memorial Garden, my last stop of this year’s Neighborhood Strength grantees and the pilot project of Haiti Cultural Exchange’s venture into public gardens.

As the Foundation’s Communications Intern for the summer, I was given the opportunity to dive into Neighborhood Strength. Earlier this Spring, the Crown Heights Council voted to renew three Neighborhood Strength projects. This summer, I’m stopping by each organization to document their space and learn about their process for engaging the community.

The Joseph E. Mohbat Prize for Writing, which is supported through the Joseph E. Mohbat Fund at Brooklyn Community Foundation, recognizes a Brooklyn public high school senior who has demonstrated a gift of self-expression through writing.

In the third year of Neighborhood Strength — our resident-led grantmaking model — the Crown Heights Advisory Council has recommended that we renew support for three community-based organizations addressing the challenge of limited public space for community engagement in the neighborhood.

We are excited to announce a $100,000 commitment toward Census 2020 organizing in Brooklyn. With grants to the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College and the New York Immigration Coalition, we will help to ensure that the $600 billion in federal funding allocated through the Census count information is distributed fairly and accurately.

As we continue the work of our Immigrant Rights Fund—an emergency and long-term response fund launched in the weeks after the 2016 Presidential Election—our communities’ needs are evolving and deepening, creating a “new normal” amidst an almost constant onslaught of urgency and crises.